Management's main problem is that they believe the problem is one of people, and designing counter-productive incentive systems to try to get people to do better work, with raises and firings and carrot-and-stick motivation, and not, fundamentally, in designing systems for quality.
This may apply less to NASA, but it does apply to the business world, yet the result is the same. Failures and defects and poor quality are primarily the result of incomplete systematic control over the end product.
So in that sense, I saw this more as an astute diatribe on the management issues of 20th century America than an engineering piece. The engineering here is known quite well; any engineer can explain it thoroughly as Feynman has done.
The part that flies in the face of truth is how we manage people.
This may apply less to NASA, but it does apply to the business world, yet the result is the same. Failures and defects and poor quality are primarily the result of incomplete systematic control over the end product.
So in that sense, I saw this more as an astute diatribe on the management issues of 20th century America than an engineering piece. The engineering here is known quite well; any engineer can explain it thoroughly as Feynman has done.
The part that flies in the face of truth is how we manage people.
Start here for a paradigm shift: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming